


Unconfirmed Reports

by bearonthecouch



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Getting Back Together
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29946834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearonthecouch/pseuds/bearonthecouch
Summary: He looks at the enormous symbol of his broken faith for a long moment, then turns back to Mira. He might have loved her, once. And now? What now?
Relationships: Female Hawke/Cullen Rutherford
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

“Mira, I-”

She's slapped his hand away before he's even realized he's begun reaching out for her. She is shaking with emotion that is too strong to suppress. She's always been like that, passion barely contained, just under the surface. It was always so, so easy to overflow. It's one of the reasons he'd loved her.

Cullen bites his lip, and bows his head.

“You don't get to do that,” she demands. “You don't get to just be... here. You don't get to fix this.”

When he dares to look up, she's still standing there, gripping the back of the Chantry pew with white knuckles, glaring at him over her shoulder. He sighs heavily. “I didn't think I'd ever see you again,” he admits, which is both a terrible excuse and the truth, and as such, he can't erase the all-too-obvious desperation from the words. How many times has he prayed for this, dreamed about it? A chance to go back and do it over again.

“What do you want from me?” Mira snaps. Cullen's chest squeezes so tightly that for a moment it feels like he can't breathe.

“Nothing,” he insists, forcing the word out on a very careful breath. This isn't the first time she's asked the question.

Towards the end, in Kirkwall, she'd accused him of simply using her for the Chantry's benefit. And the last time he'd seen her... well. Neither of them had expected to survive.

“This wasn't my idea,” he tells her, honestly. He'd been against it, in the briefings with Trevelyan. Leliana and Cassandra had overruled him, as they almost always did.

“Because you don't trust the mages?” Hawke sneers.

“Because...!” Damn it all, how is it that she is so capable of flustering him? No matter how much he tries to say the right thing, to _do_ the right thing, with her, it is never enough. “I didn't even know you were alive,” he protests.

“I find that hard to believe.”

“I mean, sure, there were rumors. Unconfirmed reports. I _wanted_ to believe them. But...”

“But you never came looking for me.”

“How could I?” He swallows hard, and he will not meet her eyes. How could he? In the beginning, there was still his duty to the Church, and unlike those early years in Kirkwall, there could be no hope of reconciliation. Just meeting with her could be construed as treason. And then after... now... “I couldn't, Hawke. Not like this.”

She lets go of the pew, finally, and takes a step toward him. She crosses her arms over her chest, takes a few steadying breaths. He's seen her struggle to keep her anger and fear in check enough times that he recognizes the signs. She's trying to calm down, for him. She cares what he sees in her, what he thinks about her. Even now.

When she speaks, her voice comes out small, barely audible in the looming space of Haven's Chantry. “Not like what?” she asks.

He shakes his head, unwilling – not _wanting –_ to answer. “It doesn't matter, Hawke.”

“How can you say that?! How can anything about you – about _us –_ not matter?!”

“Of course it matters! I mean... I didn't mean...” He growls softly, under his breath, clenching his fist. Pissed at himself, pissed at the world. Not pissed at her. Not ever pissed at her. How could he be? “I just meant... there are a lot of things that I regret.”

“Me?”

He shakes his head. “No. Not you. Never you.”

He takes another step closer to her, and they are bridging the divide between them, a little bit at a time, each of them trying. He is almost close enough to touch her, now. He lets his eyes fall closed, and he reaches out with other senses. They are weaker now, without the lyrium, but it's _her_. He knows her too well not to be able to sense the magic within her. She is stronger, now, more powerful. How could she not be, though? It's been a hell of a war.

“Can you feel it?” he asks her.

“What, the Breach?”

He nods. It wasn't what he meant to ask, but it gets to what he's been wondering.

She nods too. “It's... different. Magic is different, now.”

“I've stopped taking lyrium,” he blurts out. It seems the easiest way to explain. Why everything is different now.

Mira's mouth is already open, words already forming, on the tip of her tongue. But she stops, redirects. “What does that mean?”

There is a tremor of worry in the words, and it lifts Cullen's mood, just a bit. She still cares. Despite the anger. Despite the years.

He looks around, taking in the immensity of their surroundings. This is not a neutral space. Not for either of them.

“It means I'm no longer of the Chantry, for one thing.”

“That's what he said,” Mira confirms. Referring to Trevelyan. “But the templars aren't, anyway. Not for years.”

Cullen nods. It shouldn't surprise him that the Champion of Kirkwall continues to keep abreast of politics. In her status as a leader of the mage war, it would have been even more critical knowledge. No wonder Jacob Trevelyan lobbied so hard to get her here. It was a smart move, no matter how desperately he wishes it could be different. Mira's done a thousand times more than her fair share. This isn't her fight, not if she doesn't want it to be. Does she want it to be?

He studies her, trying to answer the question, but Mira is even more inscrutable now than she was when he met her. There is very little predicting her actions, mostly because he's pretty sure even she has no idea what she's going to do until she does it. She's here, isn't she? That's a start.

Above them, the statue of Andraste looms, larger than life, so ancient it's easy to believe that it has stood here since the dawn of time. There is so much that the Chantry had taught him, and all of it is crumbling now. He looks at the enormous symbol of his broken faith for a long moment, then turns back to Mira. He might have loved her, once. And now? What now?

How much does she know about the templars, about what he used to be? Does she still look at him and only see a mage hunter? An enemy?

He has taken to pacing about out here, as he awaits his turns in the briefing room. These walls are no longer comforting for him. His skin itches. His temper flares. He forces himself to calm, to keep still. He can feel her eyes on him.

Mira crosses her arms over her chest and waits for him to explain himself, but her patience is fraying too. He can tell. She was never as disciplined as he was, why would she be?

He shakes – uncontrollably, sometimes. He hears things that no one else hears, sees flashes and shadows at the corner of his eye, illusions that snap out of existence as soon as he tries to lock them down.

“It's different,” he admits. “It's like you said. I can't tell what's real anymore.”

He doesn't know how to say this out loud, how to tell her that he can't separate his hopes and desperate dreams from the world around him. It terrifies him. Sometimes he doesn't even know how he manages to stand in front of people like Cassandra and Leliana and Jacob Trevelyan wearing such a perfect mask that no one has yet asked him if anything is wrong.

It was like that in Kirkwall too, though. The demons of Ferelden's Circle Tower had chased him to that place, and new demons flourished in their wake. But lyrium had kept them at bay most of the time, and duty gave him something to focus on when the drug didn't work. And she was there. And that helped too. He clung to her like a lifeline and he has no idea if she even knows it.

“I didn't want you to see me like this,” Cullen admits. “I never did.”

He waits for her to protest, to scream at him, to _anything_ , but she just _looks_ at him, searching, for several long minutes. “You don't look different,” she finally says.

His jaw drops, a little. And he rubs his hand over his eyes. He feels _so tired_. “How can you say that?” he pleads. She used to know him better than that. Better than anyone. How can even she not be able to tell how damaged and broken he is now?

Mira licks her lip, seeming to consider the question. For once. She sits down, sideways on the pew, so that her legs spill out into the wide corridor. Her face is illuminated only by the ever-burning candles and the sunlight spilling in through the still-open doors behind them. “Do I look different to you?” she asks, once she looks up again.

The question surprises Cullen. But he wants to answer it honestly, so he looks at her, with both his eyes and his magical senses, trying to really _see_. And he finds himself nodding. “You are different,” he answers softly. “You seem... older.” Stronger and more powerful yes, but also harder. Colder. More alone, and more afraid. When he'd first met her she had still been an idealist. Somehow living as an apostate, running from the templars and the Blight, hadn't killed that. But whatever has happened in the years since Kirkwall has.

She stares at him, without blinking. She barely seems to breathe. She seems unworldly, in these moments, not like a real person at all, but more like the symbol other people have tried to make of her. It makes him shiver. He looks down at his own hand instead, watching the telltale tremor.

When he turns back, she's still watching him. He takes a deep breath. Good. That makes it much more likely that she is, actually, real.

“You remember that night, don't you?”

He nods, knowing which night she refers to, and _of course_ he remembers, how could he forget? It's seared into him. The night he made all of those choices that he can't take back. But would he, if he could? “I remember,” he whispers.

“Their blood was pooling on the courtyard steps. Running down them. Don't you remember?”

“He blew up the Chantry!”

“The mages were innocent!” she screams back, just as loudly. “Still are,” she adds. Her voice is more controlled now. She swallows hard. She's shaking too. Just barely contained. He understands what that's like, Maker help him. “Still are,” she repeats. “And for me, that night has never ended.”

Cullen blows out a long breath. He isn't sure what he wants from her. Pity? No, never that. But she's right. He has mostly sat out the war, run from it, but she's been in the thick of it from the start. Since _before_ the start. She knew what was coming long before he did, she'd tried to warn him. And when it came down to it, they were on opposite sides. When she ran, she ran _away_ from him. He'd been ordered to kill her, though of course he wouldn't have followed that command – hadn't, in fact. He'd ignored that order, blatantly, brazenly, and that had been the first severed tie between him and the Chantry that had raised him. He and Mira had fought side by side against Meredith, but it still wasn't enough to hold them together. How could it have been? She'd had to run to keep herself alive. He couldn't follow.

“I'm sorry,” he finally says. The words seem pitifully inadequate.

“I don't want you to be sorry, Cullen. For fuck's sake.”

“Well, what _do_ you want?”

“I want you to be on my side.”

The words explode in the silence of the room. He has always wondered about that talent of Mira's; this ability to be both brutally honest and vulnerable in the same instant.

“I am on your side,” he finds himself saying. “Mira, I have always been on your side.”

He draws her to him, wrapping her up in his arms. He's still trembling, and she can feel it; she looks up at him with a worried frown and eyes full of questions, but she doesn't voice them. Instead, she just lets him hold her, he can feel her chest rising and falling with each deep, steady breath. His lips brush hers, and she relaxes even more. Her eyes slip closed. He can still feel the mana crackling on the surface of her skin, the magic flowing through her; undirected, ever-present.

He breaks from the kiss, slowly, gently. Waiting for her to tell him that this is not all a lie, a pleasant dream. She still doesn't say anything, and his heart is twisted painfully inside his chest; she holds it in her hands. He cannot lose her again, not now, not ever. He just got her back.

The familiar whispers of old demons hover just at the edges of his mind. His blinks his eyes closed against their temptations.

The pressure of her touch against his skin intensifies, her thumb against his cheek. Not painful, just _present_. Rooting him here.

She kisses him again, more slowly this time. More deeply. And then, she takes his hand. “I'm here,” she tells him simply.

He nods, thoughts already racing, as he thinks about what her presence and the fragmented army of mages she's brought with her will mean for the fledgling Inquisition. He's still got that faraway look in his eyes when _something_ brings him back. A touch on his mind. A magical push. His head his ringing slightly in the aftermath, but he focuses on Mira – which is exactly what she wanted.

“I'm _here_ ,” she repeats.

“Okay,” Cullen breathes.

This is it, their chance to try again, their chance to fix it. There is a hole in the sky, a rip in the world. If he can ask her to come here to try to repair _that_ , then he has to believe that their relationship too, cannot be irreparably broken.

“Thank you,” he mumbles, as he hugs her again. There are tears in his eyes. He doesn't care if she sees them.


	2. Chapter 2

She stands there, trying not to shuffle her feet uncomfortably or acknowledge how out of place she feels, here in the Inquisition's briefing room. A large map of Ferelden has been unrolled atop the war table, held down by an assortment of paperweights. Mira has her arms wrapped protectively around herself as she watches the rest of Trevelyan's advisers squabble and scream over one another. Cullen looks up from across the table and meets her eyes. He wonders if perhaps the others have forgotten that she's even there. He wouldn't be surprised. He tries to move a little closer to Mira, to offer her reassurance and take comfort in her presence. But as soon as he begins moving, all eyes swivel toward him. He clears his throat awkwardly. Trevelyan's gaze burns most of all. The boy is young, but Cullen has already learned that he has a strong tactical sense, and his suggestions are worth listening to. They work well together, most of the time, except that Trevelyan seems to think that Cullen is hiding something. Perhaps because he is. Cullen places his hands flat on the war table, where they won't shake so much, and he nods toward Trevelyan. “Solas believes that the more of these rips in the Veil you can close, the more it will weaken the primary Breach.”

The Inquisition's scouts have been working tirelessly trying to map those tears, and evacuating the areas immediately around them. The refugees have been turning up at Haven for weeks.

Trevelyan surprises Cullen by turning to Mira. “Can the mages help to pinpoint the locations of these rifts?”

“I... don't know,” Mira admits. When Trevelyan does not seem able to accept that as an answer, she continues. “I... we've never tried.”

“Try,” Trevelyan demands, and Mira nods her acquiescence. “I'm taking a team out as soon as I can. I want you both with me.”

Cullen gives Mira a sidelong glance, trying to judge her reaction to the order, but he can't read her and eventually he just nods.

The meeting wraps up quickly, after that.

* * *

Cullen and Mira meet again in the stables. They are alone except for the horses, who snicker quietly in the cool, quiet space. Cullen walks over to the stall which holds his stallion, who neighs and approaches him. He pets the animal, aware of Mira's eyes on him the entire time. She stands in the shadows just inside the entrance to the barn, arms crossed over her chest in a pose of steely determination. Cullen leads his horse out of the stall, brushing the animal gently with his hand as he does so. He nods toward another stall, further down the long hall that makes up the stables. “Take Velox,” he tells Hawke. “He's a good horse.”

He half expects Mira to refuse, just as she'd half expected her to resist Trevelyan's demands in the war room. But Mira has been fighting a war for years. Maybe she doesn't resist orders anymore.

She meets his eyes as she passes him, but she continues on, stepping confidently up to the indicated horse. True to form, Velox approaches her happily, neighing and snickering. Hawke doesn't have any of the treats that might ordinarily endear her to an animal she's never met. Instead, she reaches out with a gentle hand and brushes over the horse's hair with something more than touch: she uses magic, a calming spell that feels to Cullen like softly lapping water. The horse snickers appreciatively, and nuzzles against Mira's hand.

Cullen whistles softly. “No wonder you're so good with people,” he comments. “If you can to that.”

But Mira shakes her head. “People are complicated. It doesn't work on them.” Not nearly as easily, anyway. And Cullen knows that.

The two of them lead their horses out of the stables, Mira following a few steps behind Cullen. They join Trevelyan's surprisingly large retinue at the top of a low rise just outside Haven. Elfroot and other precious herbs dot the landscape, and Mira has to fight the instinct to simply begin gathering them up. There are more important things to do.

The gathering of soldiers, advisers, and hangers-on all mount their horses, and Trevelyan takes the lead. He waves Cullen and Mira up close to him, needing their insight on the location of the breaches. Mira frowns, and takes a long look at Trevelyan's left hand, which seems to shine with a green light even through the gloves he's wearing. “Can't you feel them?” she asks. “I mean, you stand as good a chance as I do.”

Trevelyan shrugs. “When we get close, it feels like I'm dying,” he admits. “But only when we get close.”

Mira nods. Keeping one hand on the saddle, she attempts to reach out with her magic, although the breaches aren't exactly subtle and she still believes that her eyes will be the best indicator of their location. She doesn't know what she's doing here. She never did. But the world is ending and if she has any chance of stopping it, she has to try. Doesn't she?

The miles pass in a haze that make it hard to discern how much time is passing. Even the sun arcing its path through the sky only tells her so much. Although the land is covered with signs of devastation, she sees nothing that looks like a breach, even when she squints up against the light of the sun. They stop every now and then to water the horses, and every time they do, Mira slips her hand into Cullen's, glad for the casual familiarity of the touch. His presence reassures her, the same way here as it had in Kirkwall. She tries to quell the worry she feels when she notices the way his hand shakes, cold and clammy against her skin. His look is enough to ask her not to say anything about it, so she doesn't.

And then, there it is: one of the breaches they've come out here to find.

Cullen pushes her back, out of the line of fire, moving on old instincts that she doesn't bother to protest. Mira watches him fight. His muscles move with surprising grace as he swings his sword at the oncoming waves of demons. His every movement has purpose, his body acting and reacting with a perfect unity. He makes this look like a dance. A deadly dance, but beautiful too. He howls out familiar war cries and Mira swears that the demons pouring from the breach seem to cower in his wake. He does not look at her; he will not take his attention from the fight for even the half-second doing so would take. Mira wouldn't want him to. She hopes her presence is able to bolster his resolve, somehow, and she focuses on her own contribution to the fight. Look at her, fighting side by side with a templar. What would her fellow rebel mages think if they could see her now? Would they think of her as a traitor? Does that matter?

The hiss-spitting voice of one of the demons snakes into her ear. She looks up, and swallows hard. The monster is hovering near directly overhead, and seems to laugh at her as she stands there, momentarily paralyzed. Then, something breaks. Hawke lashes out with a wave of force magic, catching the demon in invisible claws. The monster howls as the spell crushes it painfully, slowing it down and preventing it from getting close enough to Mira to hurt her. Mira catches her breath, then attacks again, this time with an ice spell that freezes the already slowed demon in place. The shape of the demon glistens, and Hawke flinches as a crossbow bolt punches a hole into the ice, cleanly shattering a chunk right out of the demon.

“Y'alright, Hawke?” Varric yells over the chaos of the battlefield.

“I'm fine!” she yells back. Varric tosses her a lazy salute and then aims Bianca once more. Between the two of them, they make short work of the demon.

Unfortunately, the breach spills out the monsters almost as fast as they can dispatch them. If it keeps going like this, they will be overwhelmed.

Varric, Hawke, Cullen, and the rest of Trevelyan's soldiers keep fighting, focused only on the monster currently in front of them. They fight well, but they're tiring. They can't keep this up. Hawke starts to feel the familiar weight of despair settling over her. Then someone grasps her arm. She looks up to see Cullen standing over her, and she smiles weakly.

“Look,” he says softly, pointing. She does look. Trevelyan stands alone on a rocky outcropping in the direct path of the breach.

“What is he doing?” she asks breathlessly. Cullen doesn't answer, but the answer soon becomes clear enough. Somehow Trevelyan is _closing_ the breach. He holds his Veil-scarred hand up toward the churning hole in the sky, and there is a noticeable surge in power, like a lightning strike. Somehow Trevelyan seems able to control it. As he stands there, shaking with the force of the power he wields, the breach grows smaller, slowly contracting until it's no longer there at all.

Trevelyan looks up, face slick with sweat, looking like he's barely able to remain standing. Cullen goes to support him, to check if he's alright. Hawke just looks on with awe. He isn't even a _mage_. Whatever this is, it's beyond anything she understands, by a large margin. She looks back at Varric, who only shrugs. “It's a good story anyway,” he points out.

The two of them slowly approach Trevelyan, but the man waves them away, exhausted as he is. “We'll make camp here,” he orders. Then he sits down on a nearby rock and starts drinking from a flask he pulls from his hip.

Hawke helps the soldiers pitch several tents, enough to shelter their large party. She tells herself it's a good thing they're not trying to hide, because they are very obvious out here, even with the treeline to their backs. She notices several people looking at her suspiciously as they work, but she's gotten used to those looks. Some of them even whisper about things they've heard – some true, mostly false or exaggerated – about her time in Kirkwall.

“You can talk to me, you know,” she blurts out. “I'm standing right here.”

If anything, that chases them away all the faster.

“Don't mind them, Hawke,” Varric suggests.

She grinds her teeth and tries not to let it get to her. She's keyed up for battle, still. It seems all she knows how to do anymore is fight. She turns to the dwarf. Once, she trusted him, even called him a friend. But so much has changed since Kirkwall, she's not sure where they stand. Varric seems uncertain too. But she can make an effort, can't she?

“Do you still carry that deck of cards?” she asks him, and the dwarf grins.

“Damn right.” He pulls it out, and soon they have lulled two unsuspecting Inquisition scouts into a game of Wicked Grace. Varric rolls over all of them, but somewhere in the middle of the game another flask has been pulled out and shared, and Mira is laughing as she and Varric share stories from Kirkwall. The city was never quite pleasant, but there were good moments there, before it all went to hell.

The sun has long since set by the time the game wraps up. Hawke finds herself staring out at the horizon, looking for some sign of the breach that had lingered there earlier, but there's nothing. It really does appear to be gone.

She crawls into her tent and eventually falls asleep.

* * *

The next morning, she rises early. The light of sunrise is barely tinting the sky, and it's cold enough that she can see her breath in the air. She rubs her hands together, trying to get warm, and heads toward the remnants of last night's fire. She's not surprised to see that Cullen is also awake, pacing around that same rocky bluff where Trevelyan had stood when he sealed up the sky.

“You always were a morning person,” she says aloud. Cullen turns. His eyes are bloodshot, and his face looks slightly puffy. Mira frowns.

“Did you sleep at all?” she asks him.

“Here and there,” he hedges.

“I can make you something. A potion or...”

But he's already shaking his head. “No,” he insists, a little too forcefully, so that Mira finds herself holding her hands up in surrender.

“Okay,” she murmurs. She can't help the worry that she feels for him, heavy inside of her. They'd been through too much together for that to be erased. She cares for him. Still. Even though they'd been on opposite sides of the war.

Cullen seems to recognize it too. Rather than push her away, he pulls her close to him, until she is leaning against his chest, breathing in the scent of him. She still fits.

They are going to look for more breaches today. Like the demons that spill from them, for every one they take out, it seems two more take its place. Yet yesterday had turned into something like a victory. Maybe whatever this is might actually be possible, if they have faith enough.

She says as much to Cullen, and he squeezes her hand. The next thing Mira knows, his lips are brushing against hers. She kisses him back. Maker, she's missed him. She hadn't let herself admit how much, in those long years of fighting alone against what often felt like the whole world. So far, the Inquisition doesn't seem likely to be any less dangerous, but at least she might be able to face the threat with Cullen at her side once again.

Things that should have destroyed her – like her mother's death, or being hunted by the Knight Commander, or the city being invaded by Qunari – became easier to bear with him nearby. This could be like that, for both of them.


	3. Chapter 3

The chill of winter sweeps down from the looming mountains and creeps into the Hinterlands. Each day brings an earlier sunset than the one prior. Hawke sits atop a boulder at the edge of the Inquisition's camp and stares pensively out at the farmlands and forests, watching as that earlier sunset paints the sky with gradients of oranges and reds.

She turns as soon as she hears footsteps, boots crunching through the piles of fallen leaves. She relaxes her guard – not all the way, but some – as soon as she recognizes Cullen. He stands there, just inside the shadow of a nearby tree, watching her silently for several long moments.

Hawke resists the instinct to shiver in the cold. She turns away from the landscape, focusing on him instead. “What do you want?” she asks carefully.

“Trevelyan wants a meeting.”

Hawke flinches before she can stop herself. She can't begrudge the Inquisitor his strategy sessions, but she doesn't feel like she is a part of them, no matter how often he invites her. She picks herself up and follows Cullen through the forested path back toward the Inquisition's main camp.

Trevelyan has set up a table on a low ridge almost exactly in the center of their circle of tents. As in the war room back at Haven, the table is covered with a large map weighed down with heavy paperweights.

When he looks up, Jacob looks so obviously overwhelmed that Mira finds herself holding her breath, wondering what the young man is going to say. He looks up at her with that unnervingly piercing gaze, and beckons her closer. Mira gives Cullen one last quick glance before taking a few steps closer to the war table, so that she can see the map, and all of the circles and notes that Jacob has scrawled onto it.

“The remnants of the mage army are refusing to talk to the Inquisition's scouts,” Trevelyan growls, with obvious frustration.

“And you think they'll listen to me?” Mira wonders.

“You stand a better chance than any of us.”

She glares at him, hating Jacob Trevelyan yet again for dragging her into this. But he'd offered her a chance at redemption. The mages aren't going to win their war, they both know it. There is no winning that war. The Inquisition is all that's left, and she's part of it whether she wants to be or not.

She wonders, yet again, if they'll think of her as a traitor. But she doesn't dare let her anxieties show.

“Let me talk to them alone,” she insists. Trevelyan concedes easily. But he surprises her by asking her to hold a moment. He seeks more than personal gain by sending her to the mages.

“There are refugees,” he tells her, waving his hand over the map to show her their approximate location. “Farmlands burned, people chased out of their homes...”

“I know,” Mira breathes. She doesn't want to get into this, doesn't feel the need to give a speech about why the mages are behaving the way that they are. But, Maker help her, she _understands_ them. She's one of them. They feel like the whole world is against them, civilian or not. Too many of them have been betrayed by Chantry-faithful farmers or even refugees. “You want me to put a stop to it,” she declares. It isn't a question. Of course that's what Trevelyan wants.

But at least he doesn't make it an ultimatum. “If you can,” he says simply.

* * *

Mira sets forth for the agreed-upon meeting place with Jacob Trevelyan's hopes burning within her. The mages in this part of the world are holed up in a series of caves and old mines that lead deeper into the mountains. The terrain is easily defensible and difficult – if not impossible – to fully map. The boy who comes out to greet her is familiar, a young man from Orlais's White Spire who fights as fiercely as any Mira has met. He gives her a deferential nod, still seeing her as their leader. But he's guarded, even still. Mira doesn't blame him. Most of the mages that she'd fought with don't trust anybody. She'd taught them that. A sense of suspicion that is key to their continued survival.

“Hawke,” the boy says. She gives him a short nod.

“Julien.”

“Come inside.”

He leads her into the mages' compound, where several familiar faces wait. A young elf woman with white hair shaved up the sides glares at her. “Is it true?” she spits. “Have you truly joined the Chantry's Inquisition?”

“The Inquisition isn't supported by the Chantry,” Mira points out.

“I should have known we couldn't trust her. She supported the templars in Kirkwall!”

“I fought for the mages in Kirkwall, _against_ Knight Commander Meredith. You all know that.”

“Why are you here? Have you come to fight with us again?”

“I have no wish to fight.”

“So you're giving up, is that it? The war isn't over, Hawke.”

She sighs, heavily, and sits down on one of the waiting stones, suddenly feeling decades too old to deal with this. She's so _tired_. “I know it isn't.” She looks at each one of the faces surrounding her, meeting each person's gaze in turn. “The Inquisition is prepared to offer a full pardon – and the protection of its armies – to any of us who join.”

“They'll just enslave us, same as the Chantry. They've got _templars_ with them.”

“It's an offer, nothing more. No one will hunt you down if you refuse it.” The faces staring back at her are clearly disbelieving. Mira presses on. “I've met the man that some are calling the Survivor. He's a good man. He's simply trying to do the right thing. And he has asked me to ask you to stop the assaults on the refugees.”

“They attack us first, Hawke!” Julien cries. “You know they do.”

“We're just protecting ourselves.”

Mira shakes her head. “I've _seen_ what's happening out there. This war isn't following any of the rules.”

“There _aren't_ any rules. There haven't been for years.”

“Then we have to make some. We have to do better.” She draws herself up to her full height, confident in a way that she hasn't been since Kirkwall. “I came to you in good faith,” she reminds them. “Please. Give me _something_.”

“We haven't attacked the Inquisition, have we?”

“Because you knew I was with them?” No one answers aloud, but they don't have to. Hawke gives a nod. “I thank you for that. And I know that I'm asking a little bit more, now. But our war has always been against the templars, and those who would corrupt Chantry teaching to enslave, harm, and kill us. We have no quarrel with farmers and shopkeepers. The refugees are off limits unless they attack first.”

“You aren't in charge of us anymore.”

“This war will never end unless we put an end to it. The Inquisition can help us to fight against the real threat. The templar threat.”

“You really do believe them.”

“I do. And any who have ever had faith in my leadership are welcome to join me.”

* * *

Trevelyan whistles softly. “I have to admit, I didn't truly believe you'd be able to pull that off.”

“I told you not to underestimate her,” Varric chides.

Trevelyan nods. “That you did.”

Mira crosses her arms across her chest and stares at them both across the war table. She locks eyes with Trevelyan. “The mage army is your responsibility now.”

“I'll keep that in mind.”

“Treat them right. They've been betrayed by everyone they've ever trusted.” Over and over again, through their entire lives. It's an experience that unites practically every mage across Thedas.

“Trevelyan's a good man, Hawke,” Varric says. She just shrugs. She can't put her full faith in him either. But she's willing to give him a chance.

* * *

After closing every breach they've been able to find in the Hinterlands, the Inquisition scouts and soldiers return to Haven. Hawke tries to let her guard down, but there's just too much to do for her to be able to fully do so. There is friction between the mages and the templars, predictable but fear-inducing in the same way that a spark might predictably ignite an inferno. In the end, Hawke tries to solve the problem by setting the mages' camp as far away from Haven itself as she can manage. Cullen is no longer in charge of the templars, yet he tries to reign them in, and thankfully many still respect him enough to listen. The result is a tense truce, with either side carefully watching the other.

She's standing there feeling like she's holding all of it on her shoulders when Cullen walks up to her. As always these days, he looks exhausted: dark rings under his bloodshot eyes, too-pale skin, shaking hands. But she pretends not to notice. She stands up on tiptoe and runs her fingers through his messy tangles of hair. He holds onto her, as if for dear life. He takes her hand and squeezes it, almost hard enough to hurt. She squeezes back. It feels good to have him at her back again; it feels like he can take some of the weight.

“They listen to you, Hawke,” he breathes, and he sounds almost awestruck. She shrugs.

“I'm used to it, I guess.” He should be too. The soldiers listen to him. But he shakes his head when she tells him so.

“They don't know that I'm barely holding myself together.”

She runs an appraising eye over him once more, and tries not to let on how worried she is. They both desperately need a break: more sleep than they're getting, more _safety_. A chance to let their guard down, just for a little while.

“Come on,” she says, and she takes Cullen's hand and pulls him into the Chantry. Like the caves of the Hinterlands where the mages hid, Haven's Chantry leads into dozens of spiraling passageways under the mountain rock. There are hidden rooms carved into those, secret hideaways where they can be assured of a half an hour's privacy. One such room is littered with crates containing who-knows-what. Mira has no idea how long those crates have been here. Are they Inquisition supplies, newly placed here? Or have they been here for years, even decades? The idle curiosity sends random thoughts spinning in circles around her brain. But Cullen's touch helps slow those thoughts, helps her focus, helps her calm.

He unrolls a bedroll she hadn't realized he'd brought with him and gently sits her down atop it. Her heart flutters in her chest, until Cullen wraps his strong arm across her body. She concentrates on breathing, slow and careful. She inhales the scent of him, spicy sweat that still tastes familiar after all these years.

“I still feel like we're doing something wrong,” she murmurs.

He shakes his head, confident now the same way he always had been in Kirkwall. It's always been easy to trust him, even when she shouldn't. “We're not doing anything wrong, Mira,” he insists. “We never have been.”

She nods, wanting desperately to believe him.

The two of them come together so easily, even when representing opposite sides of the raging war whose remnants still wait outside the Chantry's walls.

Mira sits up, resting her weight on her elbow. “Do you think Trevelyan knew what he was doing, inviting the mages here?”

Cullen shrugs. “He was right about inviting you,” he points out.

“And you didn't want him to.”

“You're right, I didn't. You deserve to be left out of this. I'm sorry for dragging you into it.”

“It's not your fault. I..” she hiccups a little, but the truth of what she's about to say can't be denied. “I wanted to.” Ever since she'd learned that the Inquisition could bring her face to face with him again, she couldn't walk away from it.

Cullen nods. “I'm glad you're here,” he admits. “I'm not sure I could do this without you.”

“But I'm not even doing anything.”

“That's not true. Mira, that has never been true.”

They sit there, taking refuge in each other's arms, each allowing themselves to break a little bit in a way that they cannot do unless they are together. Cullen's lips find Mira's first, and he kisses her, gently, again and again. She sighs and grinds against him, bringing her body closer to his. The next thing she knows, her hand is sliding under his shirt, pushing it up along his smooth skin, baring his stomach and then part of his chest. He shivers in the chill of the room, but simply pulls her closer rather than complain. The warmth of her is enough for him, even as his shivering turns to outright shaking.

Mira cannot hide her concern anymore. “Cullen? Are you alright?”

He nods, though through chattering teeth he ends up biting his tongue, hard enough to draw blood. “Fine,” he gasps. He's clearly lying. “I'll be fine,” he amends. “As long as you're here.”

He pulls her down until she's straddling him, and then she's riding him, faster and harder until they are both gasping for breath. Underneath her, Cullen cries out, and then he lets go, relinquishing the last of his control. Mira rolls over, off of him, and stares at the rocky ceiling. In the darkness, everything seems somehow less than real.

She reaches out for Cullen's hand, and he takes it. Their fingers twine together. They lay there like that for a long time, in the silence.


End file.
